Depending on your company's guidelines, a travel authorization may be required prior to making travel arrangements. If your company uses the online booking feature, a travel authorization is created when making your travel reservations with your company's travel booking provider.

Once you create a travel authorization, you can track its status and see where it is in the approval flow.

Travel authorizations enable users to submit actual or proposed travel plans for approval.

• When booking a trip with a travel booking provider, the travel authorization includes specific trip details (reservations and actual cost) for transportation (air and rail), hotel, and car rental, as well as general details (such as dates, locations, and purpose of travel) and other anticipated expenses.
• A travel authorization created without using the online booking feature might contain anticipated costs for transportation, hotel, and car rental expenses as well as more general trip details (such as dates, locations, and purpose of travel) and other anticipated expenses.

Travel authorizations involve these basic steps (see the process flow diagram for a detailed description of the process):

1. A user creates a travel authorization for actual (online reservations) or proposed travel expenses and submits it for approval. Ariba Travel & Expense notifies designated approvers that a travel authorization is waiting for their approval.
2. If approved, and the travel authorization:
• Includes travel reservation line items, a travel authorization order is sent to the travel booking provider for ticketing.
• Includes only proposed travel line items, the process is finished.
3. If the travel authorization is not approved or the online reservations are not confirmed, you can create and submit a new travel authorization.